Snap! JOBS Act Trending. Welcome Passion First!

Snap!  JOBS Act Trending.  Welcome Passion First!

For more information, visit: Online Film Financing Startup Passion First Funding Portal Announced at Sundance

My professor, just a few hours ago, was kind enough to offer me a seat for the 'Film Interchange on Saturday January 25th' event tomorrow.  I didn't know who Richard Guay was.  Then I did.  Then I saw the topic and thought 'oh, how nice,' but I couldn't attend because it's my mother's birthday.

And that's life.  Gotta keep a balance and remember all we do is to support the peace in our home and the opportunity to validate the time we have with our loved ones.  

Then I read the article at the head of this post.  It had been waiting for me for a few days on one of my numerous open tabs.  And oddly enough, Richard Guay is the founder of PASSION FIRST.  Well, shit...

I'll bother him via his blog at some point.

Why am I excited?  
One because I have an indirect connection to him and two because he is open to taking questions personally.  Lastly, he's on the forefront of utilizing what the JOBS act has to offer.  I wrote about this a while back when SLATED did a post on the potential investor strategies that will be adjusted now that investors can get involved for a return via public mechanism.  Crowd-funding is likely gonna shift in some big and unforeseen ways.  Ted Hope is a long time advocate of qualifying investors and staged funding also.  

I don't particularly understand it all yet.  I've been putting the pieces together.  But I think it's all about building infrastructure and standardized business practice within Indie Cinema to reduce risk by rewarding preparation, education on both producing and financing ends.  I think it's very cool to see the forces in motion.

I also think this process is going to redeem film schools while simultaneously causing a restructuring on what production programs offer.  The language is changing; right now!  It can easily leave aspiring filmmakers in the dust just as new technologies are quickly making education in celluloid obsolete.  It all ties together but not when it's unraveling.  

The standard definitions are evolving and it's good in that it's all to promote greater efficiency in the near future hopefully.  But curriculum and general outreach needs to remain contemporary, flexible and a consistent priority.  We need more outreach - especially in public institutions like CUNY where there's a wealth of talent without the proper type of current industry perspective to make an impact.

I've got my work cut out for me... Any mentors our there??

Let's get what we came for,
C.M. Sanchez III

P.S. One last note on the implications of productions being valued like stocks:  Business standards are great.  Incentives for organization and validation are wonderful.  But let's not forget that where serious art lies tends to remain the obsessive ego, the unrestrained soul, the passion of those that are absolutely murdered by bureaucracy.  GE CEO Jack Welch advised to beware too much paperwork and support autonomous leadership - to coach policy but not strangle with red-tape.  I hope that whatever new avenues of opportunity arrive, they don't completely obstruct the leg-room needed for emerging artists to be properly appraised.  I've heard about those foreign pre-sale value systems and all art-commerce concerns remain a slippery-slope.